Teaching International Studies from a Regional Perspective: An ISP Symposium on Power, Wealth and Global Order: An International Textbook for Africa

Thanks to a suggestion made by Tim Shaw (Dalhousie University), the Editors of ISP decided about a year ago to commission a discussion of the textbook Power, Wealth and Global Order: An International Relations Textbook for Africa. This symposium aims at increasing our understanding of the different, regionally specific perspectives that can be brought to bear when studying international relations outside of North America and Western Europe. We want to thank Prof. Donald Gordon for the time he spent on examining the volume at hand and for his insightful analysis of the contribution made by the editors and authors of the textbook. Based on this discussion, we then asked four other authors from diverse areas of the world (Venezuela, Korea, Slovenia, and Russia) to read Prof. Gordon's analysis and respond to a set of questions we posed to them. Those questions and their comments follow Prof. Gordon's essay. We would also like to invite other ISA members from anywhere in the world to comment on this subject, as a continuing effort to engage important pedagogical topics in the pages of ISP.     

The emotional motivation of righteous behavior

A distinction is made between two types of prosocial behavior: personal-helping and righteous behavior. Past studies suggest that sympathy may motivate personal helping but not righteous behavior. The latter may be better predicted by feelings of moral outrage and existential guilt. An experiment was designed to motivate a piece of righteous behavior, the writing of a political letter to stop the testing of nuclear weapons. A series of premeasures ascertained strength of attitude, sense of efficacy, acceptance of responsibility, and prior antinuclear behavior. Subjects who supported a nuclear freeze were exposed to material advocating a nuclear test ban, a video of a congressional aide who argued for the efficacy of writing letters to congressional representatives, and emotionally arousing material on the bombing of Hiroshima. After answering a questionnaire that included items to measure emotional state, subjects were individually given the opportunity to write a letter as they were waiting to be interviewed. Social pressure was deliberately minimized. Extent of moral outrage predicted both previous behavior and letter-writing behavior during the experiment. It combined with previous behavior and sense of efficacy to predict 56% of the variance in experimental behavior: Neither sympathy nor existential guilt were significantly related to this righteous behavior.     

Mediación y jurisdicción voluntaria en el marco de la modernización de la justicia. una aproximación a la legislación española

The legal maxim Justice delayed is justice denied, but is now a reality. People demanding agility and require a solution promptly and fairly close to its interests, it is fitting that in a world dominated by technology, legal and administrative bureaucracy around the delivery of justice to maintain a slow pace. At the international level seek ways of economic and prompt settlement of disputes in this way are promoted among various legal means, first voluntary jurisdiction otherwise the mediation, it is both streamline procedures, however the legal for each is different. The analysis of the article focuses on the legal experience and valuing Spanish first draft Voluntary Jurisdiction Act and the Act on civil and family mediation to establish its various functions in search of an agile and real justice.     

Delivering Justice in Indigenous Sentencing Courts: What This Means for Judicial Officers,Elders, Community Representatives,and Indigenous Court Workers

Indigenous sentencing courts are now an established form of innovative justice practice in most Australian jurisdictions. Whether such processes, which involve the participation of local community elders or representatives in sentencing an offender, provide a “better” form of justice is still up for debate. Recidivism analyses have yet to find that these courts are more likely to reduce reoffending than their mainstream counterparts. Some scholars argue that this is not the sole purpose of the courts and that other measures of “success” should be utilised when evaluating their performance. This article uses interviews with judicial officers, elders, community representatives, and Indigenous and non‐Indigenous court workers to explore what the courts are seeking to achieve and how that translates into a different form of doing justice.     

Ukraine twenty years after independence: Concept models of the society

This paper attempts to create an overview of the Ukraine twenty years after independence by presenting prevailing conceptual narrative models of Ukraine employed by Ukrainian and foreign experts. Based on the analysis of 58 interviews of Ukrainian political and intellectual elites and foreign experts, the study revealed several categories of conceptual narrative models employed by respondents: (1) a state without a national idea and a common identity; (2) a country in an unfinished transition and degradation; (3) a divided society; and (4) Ukraine as a colony or “wild capitalism”. The analysis of these categories helps to assess conflict potential in Ukraine and discuss some ideas for conflict prevention and resolution.